[Jim_Kennedy]

Slag,

All stolen from the internet, I have pictures of various fingers and thumbs, from both of my hands, if you'd like one. 

Merry Christmas

[Jim_Kennedy]

"I love the(this ^ ) last photo.  I have often wondered if scaling down a topo map of contours like that would result in a natural looking fw"......-Jeff Brauer

Jeff,
Is this believeable, on our side of the Atlantic?

[Damon Groves]

If mounding is done simply in an attempt to frame the hole to add some "naturalness" then it tends to come of artificial. However, my home course is Santa Anita Golf Course in Arcadia CA. It was built in 1938 from absolutely flat land as it used to be the original site of the race track and then an Army ballon airfield. The land was transformed into some incredible mounding that is integral to the strategy of each hole. A fine example of what good mounding can look like.

Go to Geoff Shackelfordzs site and click on Journal Topics and then look for Golf As It Should Be Files for more on Santa Anita. 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

When I have time I'll present a more detailed explanation, but, for the time being I believe part of the reason has to do with a backlash against "framing"

I also believe that most view mounds in a single context, appearance, rather than function.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Pat,

I look forward to that. I agree that there are many artifical looking mounds out there.  I also believe there will be a preserrvation movement to keep some of those JN cone shaped mound courses as an example of 90's architecture, but as always, I could be wrong......but no one has ever disproven my theory that aliens have landed and take over TePaul's brain either!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

I hope you don't mind if I correct you.

Your assertion that aliens have landed and taken over TEPaul's brain is flawed at the core since it assumes that he had one to begin with, and those that have known him for years can attest to the fact that there has never been anything between his ears.

[Lester George]

Jeff,

Great thread!  I could go on and on....if I only typed better. 

This got me thinking.  A beauty contest!!!   Each  member of this group should submit a picture (just one) of the "most beautiful" mounds (golf course)  they have ever seen.  The "winning" architect gets to submit other pictures in an effort to convince the group he has done better (or worse) as the case may be.

Lester 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Lester,
Mother Nature ( I think)

[TEPaul]

Jeff Brauer and Pat Mucci:

There is so much accumulated knowledge and wisdom in my head that it has become exceedingly heavy these days pretty much forcing me to either sit down or lie down most of the time.

As for aliens, that's a subject neither of you could understand. Matter of fact, it isn't even worthwhile speaking with people like you anymore. The only one on here I feel it worthwhile to communicate with is Paul Cowley and I remind you that I think his idea of creating some "Alien Debris Mounds" in the future is absolutely delightful. Paul and I don't even need to speak to each other to communicate----mental telepathy works just fine!

[Lester George]

Jim,

I guess we would have to limit the pictures that a shaper/architect built wouldn't we?  Can't improve on mother nature.

Lester

[TEPaul]

By the way, on two separate occasions with plenty of people on hand I asked (or more like forced) Gil Hanse to explain what he would like to do in architecture in the future if he had no restraints at all on him. His answer was a very simple-----"MOUNDS!"

[Adam Clayman]

Jim, More from the same architect.



As with most of the esoteric nuances in gca, how one shapes and places those mounds is the main difference between hideous and genius.

[Jim_Kennedy]

OK Lester, I'll use Slag's photo from an earlier post, 8th ? at  Barbougle.

Adam,
Can't see the photo, just a red square. (your not a commie, are you? )

[Kalen Braley]

Jim,

If you right click on the red pic and select properties, you can copy and paste the link in your browser.  Its a very neat overhead pic of a oft discussed GCA course that appears to be dormant.  Very nice pic Adam.

[RJ_Daley]

Adam's picture (when you copy and paste the address in your browser) is very cool.  I don't look at them as mounds, per se.  They are as they are traditionally referred to as "chop hills".   But, it is an interesting concept of perspective.   I assume the photo is taken from a plane at something around 100-1500 ft.  But, if one thought of it as a photo taken from near space or say 60 miles high, it looks like a mountain range with glaciers instead of the near perspective where we see the FWs. 

I'm looking for a different kind of mounds than most of this discussion, where they are manufactured as compliments to bunkers, such as Langford and Morreau built at Lawsonia.  They are, as I commonly refer to them as 'gullwing' shaped mounds, with an ellongated mound usually oriented on the diagonal and a cupped or sculpted out fat side.  Those are the kinds of mounds I like, as opposed to the generally simetrical mounds of rows of buried elephants.  I like mounds that seem like they are an emmulation of a ridge or drumlin or eskar.  I also like an irregular or ellongated mound that starts well away from the green and works into the green from a point on the clock direction, thus becoming part of the contour of the green.  I think sometimes that if there are a few holes with more simmetrical shaped mounds near or within surrounds of greens, that the opportunity should be taken to specify that areas or hollows between such mounds are designated to be mowed short as little collection or runaway areas.  But, to consistently group mounds in simetry whereby the whole mound and all the area between the mounds when surrounding a green is spec'd to be 2" blue grass or such, without taking advantage of the interesting contour between the mounds, is a design mistake, IMHO.

[Adam Clayman]

Jim, I've tried to re-post the picture. I was able to see it on my home puter, so, I suspect old York Photo has come up with a way to block the use in this manner, or, this website has some new protocols. Speaking of which, did I read where there was a change, and, a picture need not be posted on the web to be placed within the body of a post?
If so, could someone give a quick lesson?

Just to add to this thread...

I recently (last 2 years) saw the first televised Masters (1960?) where Arnie won. In that film, there's a ground level shot of Arnie on the 17th. In what appears to be the middle of the fairway, was a conical mound, of the ilk I had never seen before on a Masters telecast. I suspect that feature is long softened, but, if someone knows of a way to isolate a frame of an old telecast maybe it could get posted. Of course thats assuming I ever figure out how to do it again. 

Here's another course with mounding that I find to be well thought out.



As the outlying site indicates, mounds are frequently found in all shapes and sizes, naturally. Making the one's Mr. Dye constructed here, fit.

[Phil McDade]

Richard:

Here's some vintage L-M mounding -- I think some of this is just as neat as the stuff you find at Lawsonia:

[Jim_Kennedy]

Adam,
The photo has magically appeared.

thanks

[Neal_Meagher]

In order to truly understand where we have been in the recent past with mounds doesn't it bear looking critically
at where they began and what their inspiration was originally?  To get at this I submit this photo of the Alps hole at
Tain, the 380 yard par 4 hole there.  To me this shows several things that respond to Jeff's original query:

1)  The shape, or look, is most definitely not man-made in form.  This is due to the uneven slumps and dips which is to be
      expected with a natural, more or less, grassed-over sand dune.  That is one of the items that separates mounding
      that is "acceptable" to most on this discussion group from mounding which isn't.

2)  The slope ratios are variable and not constant; as Jeff discussed up front, it is always best to feather the slopes into
      the natural grade, which this dune effectively does on its own.

3)  In reading through the posts here it seems like most are thinking of mounds as being of the containment variety, placed
     either parallel to the play of the hole to the green, and then at the sides and rear of the putting surface.  This dune, or
     mound, is directly perpendicular to the line of play acting as the defining element of the hole.

So, what I think has taken place over the last 10-15 years with the advent of the New Naturalism in course construction, is
that the containment mounding of the 80's has morphed into a more refined and purposeful usage of the form, not unlike this
hole that was designed by Old Tom over a century ago.

[RJ_Daley]

Neal, in terms of a 80s-90s look of mounding, or a more purposeful use of mounding; how would you characterize
Pete Dye's approach to mounding the various Kohler courses.  All those courses are nearly 90% comprised of
mounding.  Some are used as definition of green sites, most particularly at BWR courses, and then the Whistling
STraits and Irish courses are faux Irish dunes totally manufactured in overdrive sorts of presentations.

One purposeful thing that I believe Dye emmulated was probably watching various Opens and seeing the use of
the mounding as amphitheaters of spectators.  Thus, he used alot of that approach in his Kohler courses.  So, those are both
containment of hole corridors and spectator venue in addition to attempting to copy or at least
emmulate the natural ones, not unlike the one in the photo you posted.

Here is a link to many photos of the Kohler courses on the hole by hole slide show.
http://www.akohlerexperience.com/

[Sean_A]

I think many of you have hit to the crux of mounding regardless of how well done they are.  The key is to get them in play and use them sparingly - rather like bunkering should be used!  That said, the use of mounds goes back a long way.  I think Colt was one of the very first to use mounds as frames.  He did it an awful lot around greens - essentially acting as edge points to the rear.  Most around his time were building mounds often times not so artfully, but more in the middle of play.  That said, I have come across a few Colt greens with mounding at the left and right points in the rear which was very deceiving.  When I see these I usually think of the green as moving from back to front - they create the sense of added height to the rear.  At Whittington there are a few of these babies which slope away from the fairway and the mounding hides this effect. 

Ciao 

[RJ_Daley]

I wonder if we should explore a definintion in terms, regarding mounding.  As the older architects and
writers used the term, 'hillocks'.  Was that a substitute word for mounds.   We may be using the word
mounds synonymously with 'noses', 'humps', 'hillocks', 'ridges', or even 'dunes'.  Is it a mound if it is constructed,
and one of these others if it exists in nature, or is the result of melting down one of the natural rising structures?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Not forgetting the ‘Turf Dykes’, grassy hollows or marl/bell pits, stone walls, quarries or railway lines. Have some more but think that covers a good selection.

Melvyn

[Adam Clayman]

I don't know what it is, but every time I try to quantify, or define mounding, Pete Dye enters the realm and blows everything out of the water.

Here's my thinking... Repetitive smooth mounding is some of the worst, aesthetically, and when used as containment, spiritually. Yet when Pete does it, ala the 16th at Firethorn, or, the 18th on Meadow Valley, (that mogul look) it works on several levels. I do recognize Pete has built some hideous looking ridges, but I'd bet every one of them was for reasons justifiable. i.e. Hiding roads, or worse.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

In an effort to reinvigorate this post, I'd love to see some pictures of the best mounding examples you can think of?  Many thanks.

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